Australia heads off on their Grand Slam tour looking to beat England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales away from home for the first time since the 1980s. With them goes the Australia XV squad side playing Bristol and England A. Even New Zealand is taking their ‘XV’ side to play Munster and Georgia. Both Nations see it as the best way to close the gap between Super Rugby and Test Rugby, but is there a better way?
I present the URC Grand Slam tours, a commercial enterprise that Rugby Australia and the URC should invest in as everyone will be a winner. New Zealand has recently agreed to play the South African URC teams as part of their 2026 tour, so why not have Australia outdo them by making it yearly?
The URC Grand Slam tours would take place in November in non-WC years, and be played over the URC rest week and the three international weekends. Each Australian team would play a URC conference, beating all four teams would win the slam. For winning the series, normal rules could apply. Obviously, the ultimate would be the Slam of Slams which, if they did it, would put Australian rugby back on the map.
Each year (apart from World Cup years) the Australian team would play a different conference. This would mean every five years, the Australian team would play every URC team once, allowing it to stay new and exciting. In reality, most players would only play each team twice or three times for the longer-serving players.
The reason this is better than the XV approach is that instead of 30 players playing two games, you would have 120 players playing 16 games. If the New Zealand XV are going to be better prepared by playing Munster, so to would an Australian side. The URC is the strongest voting bloc in world rugby after the 6Ns and Rugby Australia having links to them can only be a good thing.
Conference 1 – South Africa (Bulls, Stormers, Sharks and Lions)
Conference 2 – Ireland (Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Connacht)
Conference 3 – Wales (Ospreys, Cardiff, Scarlets, Dragons)
Conference 4 – Scotland/Italy (Glasgow, Benetton, Edinburgh, Zebre)
The two big conferences are South Africa and Ireland but the other two are becoming just as good and would provide a challenge. For the players, it’s a great team bonding experience. It also shows what rugby has to offer the player who chooses rugby over league or AFL; it’s fine to say one day, but these tours allow it every year.
You may ask why the URC would go for it but it’s a simple answer: money and playing time. Teams are realistically looking for two extra games a season and this would help. Munster have played South Africa A, Crusaders and now New Zealand XV in three consecutive seasons. Stormers and Bath had a game during the Six Nations.
The URC team still get to give the players time off, but also give fans something different to watch and market. The URC is the cool league at the moment and is probably the second-biggest league in terms of commercial value and potential. They are led by people who are willing to invest in things and they would see this as growing the URC brand.
The downside is that URC may only open it up to the top four Super Rugby sides but by then, you would hope Australian rugby would be in a better place. Either way, if the right people got together, I would be fairly certain they would like the idea.
For part of the tour, the Super Rugby teams could do some training sessions with their host teams. If the forwards got to do a few scrum sessions against each other, both would benefit. They wouldn’t need to share the family secrets but a session run by the host team and one run by the Australian team would be ideal. Teams would quickly learn if the Super Rugby training sessions were up to standard, which people have highlighted as an issue.
Yes, the URC teams might use it as a trial for potential players visiting, but there are plenty of URC players who could see it as the same. Would a Leinster back-rower who is stuck behind current international Doris, van der Flier Conan and Baird take a loan year to Sydney or Perth? He probably already has friends down there. For all the expats, it could be seen as a time to sit down and invite them home.
The URC is currently riding the crest of a wave and any relationship the Australian teams or Rugby Australia can have with them can only be good. Would the management at the Reds benefit from sitting down with the Stormers and discussing how they boosted attendance after leaving Super Rugby? Would the Force benefit from talking to Benetton about making a private-owned team work in a Union-owned league?
Western Force players. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
It might surprise many to hear how the URC is dealing with new media. If you have around 5,000 followers and put out regular content, URC know who you are, what your channel is and will give you as much access as you want within reason. It was strange last season listening to a Bulls press conference and hearing a fan podcast host ask Jake White a question.
URC fan podcasts have been discussing how they call up the URC looking for a cheeky media pass for a big game, and the person on the other end treats them like they’re with the established media. Finding media content for the URC is so vast that you would need to be unemployed to cover it all with plenty of views, opinion and access to the teams and league. It’s these kinds of things that the Super Rugby teams could benefit from.
Add in the work the league is doing with each team to make sure they have what they need to get the greatest number of fans into stadiums, not just what the broadcasts tell them. As they have looked after the interest of the clubs, the broadcast deals and fans have gone up, something Rugby Australia could learn from. We know administrators like to talk about the good job they do and these tours would allow more regular contact.
Tim Ryan of the Reds scores a try. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)
Where would a player like Tim Ryan be if he had spent his first November after the Under-20s in a Reds training squad showing what he could do and learning from playing against different players with different approaches? Instead of Super Rugby 2024 being his first experience, he could have faced Super Rugby style Lions, Connacht, Scarlets or Zebre or the more physical sides like Bulls, Munster, Benetton or Ospreys.
In the ideal world, October would be Super Rugby Australia, featuring three weeks and six teams: the four Super Rugby teams, the Test side and an emerging side (non-SR players). The highest-ranked team from Super Rugby would get a crack at the Wallabies in week three while the lowest-ranked side would play the development side in week three after the development players had done some professional training for 2-3 weeks post club championships.
The Test squad could then be picked on form, not Super Rugby four months previous. The Super Rugby sides could select some of the non-SR players to pad out their squad for the URC tour.
If they need more players while on tour, then they can easily pick up a player from the host union. I am sure a player like Gavin Coombes would be great for a Force side who lost a back-rower.
This helps the non-SR players feel they are getting a fair shot with a three-week trial and then a four-game tour to explain why they are ready for Super Rugby. Could players like Emmanuel Meafou have proven over seven weeks that he was big enough and strong enough for a Super Rugby contract? Might other Super Rugby sides have been interested in players they previously thought to be rejects, like a Hansen?
From a commercial side, the October and November games would give another 50 per cent more games to sell to broadcasters, as well as some home revenue in October and games for fans to attend. When it comes to the URC tour, a company like Harvey Norman might offer a deal to be a shirt sponsor for all the teams to help get more European exposure whereas they might not be interested in the domestic market.
The teams could sell Super Rugby commercial deals like they are now, and then get more for the URC deal (or a mega deal to cover both). Either way, more exposure usually means more money.
Teams could do special tour shirts with the crests of their four opponents on it. If any did a Grand Slam, I think shirt sales would go well as it could be a once-in-a-lifetime event. The potential is endless, and the bigger winner would be Australian rugby.
Will it happen? Probably not, but we can all dream so here is my view on how it would go.
Super Rugby Australia
Week 1 – Brumbies v Force, Reds v Tahs
Week 2 – Reds v Brumbies, Force v Tahs
Week 3 – Brumbies v Australia, Force v Reds, Waratahs v Emerging Australia
URC Tour
Brumbies to Ireland and would win two (Leinster would be playing their B team due to Test call-ups)
Reds to South Africa and would win two (Sharks are rubbish without their internationals)
Force to Scotland/Italy and would win two (the four teams are providing 55 players to the Scotland and Italy Test sides which kind of sums up the strength of the league)
Waratahs to Wales and would win three (the weakest conference based on last year for the weakest Australian team for last year, who now have a much stronger squad)
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